South and Southwest gardeners - shade your plants.

[bearfan454]

It's getting over 100 here now almost every day. My garden will burn up so I put a shade over it. It was cheap. $1.25 for 10 foot pvc pipe. 28 cents for connectors. 89 cents for corner connectors. $29.00 for a roll of sun screen that is 6 ft wide by 20 ft long. Plastic lock ties were cheap too. I guess you can tell I'm cheap too. Here's what I made



3 plants are almost 7 feet tall now. I'm 6'4" and they are taller than me. My Early Girls do me proud every year.





I'm getting some good size ones but it's early



The Sweet 100's are putting out a lot.



I still have a lot of yellow flowers.



The Sweet Banana Peppers are doing good. This weekend I am going to try to can some of them. I need to get the mason jars and lids.





I have a recipe franmarz gave me. I'll post it this weekend.

[NJCher]

1. I'm a big fan of shade

Looks like you did a very thorough job. The plants all look so robust and productive.

I have all kinds of things I use for shade:

• Screen doors from doors I've changed. I set them up like an A-frame
  
• Sawhorse-type structures which I put up and then drape the shade over
  
• Plastic gridlike material, often used for temporary fences. I drape this over some of my structures
  
• Even plastic boxes (like milk crates) with a grid-like pattern. They can be put over seedlings, which gives them a chance at establishing a good root system
  
• For windowboxes, I've even taken pieces of canvas and put round metal rings in them. Then I drape this over the windowbox during the heat of the day. The metal rings hook right into little nails I put to the side of the windowframe.

I always enjoy seeeing your pics, Bearfan.




Cher

[Nicole]

2. Beautiful garden

It's been 100°+ here for a couple of weeks now. I don't have my garden shaded, I planted on the east side of my house though so that helps.

[Kolesar]

3. In some parts of the country, you can harvest your own bamboo stakes

I wonder if those would be adequate. Your garden photographs are beautiful. I can see myself in those rows. BTW, when did you start your garden? Did you start any of the peppers or tomatoes from seeds in the garden?

[bearfan454]

4. I started the garden 8 weeks ago.

I planted all the plants on April 8th. I buy the plants at the nursery that are about 18" tall already. I bury the entire plant except for the tip. That whole thing makes roots that way. Of course I till about 10 times before that and till in several bags of chicken manure compost. Turkey manure compost is the best, but it's hard to find. I also till in a container of slow release nitrogen. Miracle Grow for tomatoes once a week in the sprayer on the end of the hose. Only half a measuring spoonful to start out. For these size plants I use 3 measuring spoonfuls. I pinch off the yellow flowers until the plants are about 2 feet tall. It shocks the plants and then they make almost double the amount when they make more yellow flowers. The Miracle Grow for tomatoes works really good on hot and sweet banana peppers too. The day after I hit them with Miracle Grow the leaves stick straight out and they perk up quite a bit. Gardening is very relaxing to me. I also really deep soak the tomato plants every night. I sit out there with the hose for about an hour. The peppers don't need as much water. I still water them every night, but not completely soaked.